__My new taillights + moisture prevention__

[twincamRob]

Well I've put off getting my taillights replaced for quite some time, mainly because the my dealership never ordered me any or contacted me for replacement after I stopped in. Then when I did contact them again recently they told me Scion would only let them try new gaskets first to see if it fixes the issue. When I asked about how they were planning to get all the water out of my current lights the service manager said, and I quote, "oh, we've got a heat gun".
So with that bit of info and other reasons I won't go into, I wanted to keep my car out of that dealerships hands.

I contacted another dealer and worked out a deal to warranty my lights mail order style. I am not sure this dealer would want to do this regularly so I am going to withhold their info so please don't ask.

Anyways, onto some pics...



My lovely fishbowl...





New lights and gaskets...



The gaskets on the original lights weren't in the best shape...


Note the traces of water on the gasket...


On the drivers side as well...


New gasket. The white strip is adhesive. I'm going to go overboard with that concept...


Black RTV silicone...


Everywhere!...






Let's hope they stay this nice forever!


It's funny I now feel like I own a new car again not that the eyesores on the back are fixed lol

[powerj2]

hahah thats one way to do it!

[chenshuo]

With all that glue, how would you get it off in the future if you need to change it again?

[Juurian]

i thought they fixed this problem already?

[Subie]

Originally Posted by chenshuo

With all that glue, how would you get it off in the future if you need to change it again?

It's not glue; it's silicone sealant. With that said, it would probably still be a PITA.

[jermyzy]

Originally Posted by Juurian

i thought they fixed this problem already?

Nope. I took delivery of my BRZ on Feb 20 and I have condensation after just 3 days of owning it

[TeamZleep]

I've yet to have an issue with mine. Got it jan. 17th. I'm gonna beef up the gaskets though...

[ParangWala]

I believe this was covered already under here...
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...ght=tail+light

I have this same issue and I got the dealer to replace the lights but it came back, so I'm going back to get it fixed again since it's all covered under warranty. If you want you can have your dealer try to fix it via this TSB.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21868

[White64Goat]

Unless I'm mistaken, the small grey spot circled in orange is a vent which is covered with a super fine mesh which should keep out moisture, but I'm not so sure about that. The green line is where the front half and back half of the tail light are connected/glued together. The foam gasket only seals the assembly to the body and prevents water from getting in the trunk/rear panel area and should play no role in moisture getting inside the tail lights.

[Rayme]

Originally Posted by White64Goat

Unless I'm mistaken, the small grey spot circled in orange is a vent which is covered with a super fine mesh which should keep out moisture, but I'm not so sure about that. The green line is where the front half and back half of the tail light are connected/glued together. The foam gasket only seals the assembly to the body and prevents water from getting in the trunk/rear panel area and should play no role in moisture getting inside the tail lights.

Attachment 29151

You're right about that seal, it's only to seal the trunk from the outside area and not the tailight itself from outside.

However, looking at the gasket, it seems to let water through the top and it gets trapped behind the light and the lower portion of the gasket keeps the water trapped where all the wires and vents are..and water slowly seeps in the lights over time through the connectors and vents. So even with a perfect tailight seal around the two halves, water can still get in from behind.

I noticed small condensation on mine, I might just put silicon on it right away and skip the dealer totally knowing all I read on here!

[cnk]

I would think that maybe another option to try is to double up on the stock gaskets. I know there was someone else who made their own gaskets out of thicker material and hasn't had any reported issues. I think I would rather try double-up'd gaskets than have to try to remove my taillights in the future with silicone all over the place.

[Rayme]

Silicon once cured is very easy to remove and becomes brittle - I wouldn't worry about finding it all gooey if you have to remove them again.

[Visconti]

interesting

[cnk]

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Silicon once cured is very easy to remove and becomes brittle - I wouldn't worry about finding it all gooey if you have to remove them again.

Hmm. . you must be using some different stuff than what I have. The silicone sealant/gasket stuff I use is the same stuff I used on my motorcycles and that stuff stays a little tacky and has to be scraped off. It's not like the silicone in the shower that you can just pull off in one motion.